www.byzcath.org Forums Faith & Christian Life Faith & Theology So just how necessary is doctrine? And to what extent?

Apotheoun made an interesting point on another thread. And because it touches on a different topic, I though I would start a new thread.


Maybe that is true for people who like studying doctrine.

For others, like myself, doctrine is as much of a hindrance as it is a help for the Life in Christ. How many arguments over doctrine have been the cause of fights and hate and division? How often does doctrine get in the way of the Gospel?

Doctrine isn't the truth.

Christ is the Truth. And the Way and the Life.

Doctrine is simply human attempts to understand and to put into words the Truth. That can be useful, but it can never be complete -- or completely needed?

The human mind is finite, but God is infinite, and the finite cannot apprehend the infinite. We will never, with our words, completely grasp God. As Alan Watts put it, it would be like trying to wrap up and label the sky.

So just how necessary is doctrine? And to what extent?

-- John

Dear John,

Good points..I would only add this to one of your sentences:



How many posters have been banned on Byzcath because of these hate filled arguments!

Regards,
Alice

JOHN:

Christ is Risen!! Indeed He is Risen!!!

All good points. But before we get into some sort of syncretism, let's look at the consequences.

From the very beginning, the struggle to transmit the Truth of Christ has caused arguments. We've had those who didn't believe He was God in the flesh--they were wrong. Beyond doctrine, there are very serious consequences to the whole of His Mission if He is not fully God and fully Man. We have had arguments over whether the transformation of bread and wine into His Holy Body and Precious Blood were real events or whether they have merrely symbolic value. If the change is not as the Church has understood it, we have no way of entering into the intimate relationship that He came to establish and only those with physical contact with Him before the Ascension would have been so gifted. The rest of us would be out of luck. We've had arguments about whether links to the Apostles are necessary since the Protestant Reformation. And if not, then each of us can form our own Church and do as we please, teach what we please, and have no one to account to but our own conscience.

Doctrine, ISTM, is like language. It not only helps us communicate the Truth in full and with the necessary implications, but also shapes the way in which we view our religious and spiritual reality. That being said, it is also true that no one of us has the absolute fullness of all the the Holy Spirit intends to teach the Church--the Lord promised that the Holy Spirit would lead us into all truth. The Spirit is always helping us "mine" the Deposit of Faith for richer understandings of it; not necessarily to discover something new that previous generations have not had a glimpse of--the Deposit is already complete, but like a diamond mine, we still have the opportunity for a fuller appreciation of what is already given to us. And we're all mining in that richness, but just in different parts of the mine.

The fights between the Churches started as the result of personalities and the differences in the living out of the Faith. When we look at the first millenium, we can see spats all the time, but never was it enough to cause anyone to think of living in permanent separation from each other. It took a series of personal slights and major affronts to harden attitudes to the point that we have come to view our separation as normal and/or necessary. And what is that S-eparation I-s N-ormal/N-ecessary? Our separations didn't happen overnight and they won't be healed overnight, but trying to find some lowest common denominator won't make it come together either. Heresy has always started as an attempt to simplify a complex Mystery of which we are a part.

There's a book I read that applies to marriage entitled "Love is Not Enough." It might also apply to Churches. It explodes the common myth that if we just love enough everything will be okay. The author leads us through lots of common sense ideas, including the idea that it takes trust to form the foundation of relationships. And I think that is the key: we need to learn to trust each other. And to trust each other, we first must come to talk to each other--honestly and without rancor or triumphalism or a condescending attitude. BTW, there 's lots of that attitude in every one of our Churches.

We may only get to the point that we can pray together for a couple hundred years, who knows. But we have to come to trust and respect and to love, all the while speaking the truth as we have learned it with humilty and honesty. Now this last can be a problem because there are many who think that honesty means giving the other a body blow or a knock out punch or even a sucker punch. That isn't so.

We've got to see each other as complimentary to one another. And it may take the education of our seminarians in team-taught courses to learn about each other from the other's point of view. It's easy to talk about another Church from one's own point of view. It's quite another to learn about the other from their own point of view.

Enough. The long-winded one need to stop for now.

In Christ,

BOB

Bob,

Your obeservation is pretty close to the mark. Look at the experience of the Greek Catholics of Eastern Europe since the Union. And the indigenous Churches of India since the arrival of the Portuguese.

How long did it take the Latin Church to accept that one can be Catholic and not Latin? Several hundred years, and the work of the Spirit is a work in progress.

X. B.

John, Alice, Bob�

Semantics is important here, because we are writing and don�t have instant explanation of what you really mean. Even though the Gospel is written black on white (except in Imperial Byzantine where it was gold on purple) it really isn�t all black or white. Never the less doctrine debated by our Orthodox Fathers shows us direction. Often we get custom confused with Tradition. When spelled in upper case it has the test of time, lower case I prefer to use the word custom which can change overnight. In defense of our separated brethren they do have a wonderful formula �WWJD?� What would Jesus do?

Often doctrine is used as elitist camouflage, for the self elite to hide behind. They may be arguing an excuse but not the problem. They have their own agendas and they want to control an outcome not understanding. You really do get more flies with honey than vinegar. It is good form not to need to be the brightest crayon in the box all the time, sometimes it is more important to let others shine. Nothing is important enough to show others how more superior you are over them. Equality has a loving, nurturing atmosphere especially if you are the one holding all the cards. Truth sometimes needs to be defended, passionately.

What? You ask, OK I�ll give you my pet peeves for the morning, like I ever shirked from it before. Wedding and funerals are not about you but them. If they want a Divine Liturgy, why not? When we process outside we are to follow the sun, is that three times clockwise as before the Nikon reforms or counterclockwise once as a couple nights ago? It really should not matter as long as we learn to bring Christ out of the church and into the world. The agenda is do we want the parishioners to be happy or do we want strangers not to know we have an inferiority complex? Do we use a cross with one, two or three arms? Again what is the difference, a cross of Christ is a cross of Christ. By the way the TV antenna argument no longer works. The agenda is do we want to look like real Catholics from the outside no mater what we do inside or do we want to do as the Orthodox no matter how we think inside? Do we mission through Paschal food blessings making each episode a covenant experience or save it for after the Easter Sunday marathon? Are we inclusive welcoming the rift raff or are we exclusive and surround ourselves only with self minded friends? Should we schedule a couple 90 minute services for 300 people or one 3 hour attracting 30? Why is it orthodox to spend more time in church than Christ did on the cross? Where are the 270 disgruntle church goers with conflicting personal schedules now to go to find Christ? Why spend time and money on weekly Sunday school instruction instead of intergenerational fun programs a couple times a year? The kids grow up to join other churches while seniors may remember the parish in their will. Why can we only do one program, like language can God only handle one at a time?

OK John, your turn. Be specific, we�re listening�

Mykhayl

Mykhayl:

Christ is Risen!! Indeed He is Risen!!!

You mention lots of pastoral matters. That's a whole other area--within particular parishes and eparchies.

I remember an incident where a priest refused to bless Paschal foods because it was Holy Saturday. His people were not Great Russian, but originally of Carpatho-Russian ancestry and custom. I wondered what the real problem was and didn't understand his refusal. Bottom line was that they ended up eventually leaving the parish--and maybe the Church--over this. Sometimes I believe you've got to meet people where they are with gentleness and compassion. But then, I'm not under orders and don't have to answer to a bishop either. So while we need to be compassionate to people, we have to remember that clergy are people with the same need, too.

My earlier point was the attitude between the members of different Churches. That's the bigger arena and it's similar. We have to learn to meet each other where we live and where they live. Different is not evil and not on the road to Hell as so many would have it.

In Christ,

BOB

Bob,

Some good comments--I hope you don't mind if I reply to a few of them:

This is quite true--yet I am becoming more and more convinced that it can be incredibly easy to accept a formula such as "true God and true man" (or "body, blood, soul and divinity," etc.) without having the slightest clue as to its implications--all of which involve living a life of grace, in which charity/agape is necessarily the principal component. By the same token, however, I believe it is also possible to embrace the person of Christ (who is indeed true God and true man) and reap the fruits of a grace-filled life--without necessarily accepting the formula!

In other words, even though Arius was indeed a heretic, I am sure that many of his followers were not--despite the fact that they accepted his erroneous doctrinal formulas.

Please note that I am not saying it doesn't make any difference, or that doctrines don't matter! I just want to get things into perspective. Very often, we assume that whatever formula someone accepts--i.e. orthodox or heretical--that is how they will live their lives. But people are more complicated than that, and it is God who made them that way!

What I am saying is that doctrinal formulas can be useful indeed, but we must always bear in mind that the truth transcends the formula. When we lose sight of that, we can easily be reduced to battling over words--we can "strain out the gnat, and swallow the camel!"

I would contend that all doctrinal statements--whether heretical or orthodox--essentially do that. We cannot reduce any divine truth to human words without simplifying it, and to some degree distorting it.

WOW! I would call that a serious misuse of the word "love." (Not that that hasn't been done before!) St. John the Theologian tells us that "God is love." (1Jn 4:8)

(Now, naturally, there are lesser forms of love, such as eros and philia, and your author is undoubtedly limiting his understanding of "love" to one or both of these--which indeed are not sufficient of themselves to produce a lifelong, joy-filled marriage.)

Bob, as I'm writing this I'm starting to realize that your comment here that "love is not enough" actually helps to illustrate my point. You are a man who loves God (I've read your posts and have no doubt of that), and yet you have no problem with the "doctrinal formula" (if you will) that love is not enough. By the same token, someone else might come along who does not know the love of God but knows the formula "God is love," he reads what you wrote and denounces you as a heretic.

I would submit that one thing that characterizes a heretic is the swiftness with which he denounces someone else!


Peace,
Deacon Richard

How many have been banned? Also, what do you define as "hatefilled arguments"? Most people on this forum are respectful to other posters. There are a few Catholics on this forum who do not agree with the modern "ecumencial movement" between the Catholic and the Eastern and Oriental Orthodox churches. Most of these likeminded people are labeled as "schismatics" and many other nasty names just because they don't wan't to play the ecumenical game.

One can respect others and yet still hold to the conviction that Catholic Church is the True, One and only Church of Christ, and that those Churches that are separated from communion with the Vicar of Christ are NOT part of the Church of Christ. Calling schismatics to unity with the True and only Church certainly is not a "hate filled" action, if it is done out of genuine concern for the salvation of souls.

The disgreement over the Filioque is certainly a "doctrinal" dispute. If doctrine were not important there would be NO difference between the Catholic and Eastern Orthodox Churches. Both Churches teach different doctrines. One MUST be correct, and the other must be false. Doctrinal differences are very important, the salvation of your soul is endangered by believeing
false doctrines.

X. B.

Bob,

Thank you for trying to keep me on tract. Debating the faith is not done in any of my circles, the execution of it is. "Orthodox" from the Slavonic �provaslany� means true glory, so we are as we pray. If something is not done in a Christ like manner, it doesn�t matter the outcome as the end does not justify the means. Sorry for misunderstanding John and you.

Mychayl

Deacon Richard:

I think we're on the same page. I hear this thing all the time--and have since the 1960s--that "all we need is love.� But the person speaking is not usually using God as his reference point. I've also heard people say that we should just let everyone bring whatever belief or unbelief or error to the Table and let everything else count for nothing. I subscribe to the Orthodox idea that I am bound by my Baptism to accept the Faith, live it out, and pass it along without adding to it or subtracting from it. In all things, I have tried to submit myself and anything that has come into my head to my spiritual father and confessor. I trust myself in nothing because I realize I am easily lead astray.

The book I mentioned attacked the common idea that all it takes to build a marriage is love--whatever that might happen to mean at a given time. He went on to challenge the idea of some folks who have rewritten the marriage vows to "until we cease to love" which leaves open the door to the first fight landing in an attorney's office. He made the point that love can be without foundation--and this, too, had no reference to God as we understand Him to be.

As far as marriage goes, I made the point to a friend recently that after we are baptized, every relationship that we form from then on has Christ as an active partner, even when that other person is not baptized. We are baptized and therefore we have put on Christ. He is part of us and part of all we do just as we enter all that He did and taught and wanted us to be: our love affair with every other person includes the One we love the most. But when we talk this way, we are on another wave length and I wanted to emphasize that batting around the word "love" often can have as many or as few or no meaning other than a "touchy, feelly." Christians mean God Himself and how He is part of us and we part of Him whenever we use that word. It is a sacred thing when we use it and speak it. And since He is Truth itself we have to be careful to be true--no circular reference intended--to the teaching that He has revealed as Truth. Gets messy; that's our struggle to be faithful. It seems to me that even in cyberspace my baptismal obligation to be charitable--to love--demands that I approach another by sincerely listening to him and trying to see through his eyes. That takes time and discipline, is nuanced, and can be misunderstood. It is not cut and dried; black and white. By listening, I mean that we drown out our own natural tendency to object to things that we hear that are different or seemingly opposed to that which we hodl dear.

As for your reference to the Divinity and Humanity of Christ, I think it goes to our own answer to the question "Who do YOU say that I am?" Muslims believe in Christ, but in a rather limited way that relegates Him to just another in a long line of prophets rather than the end of all prophecy that He is.

I also agree that doctrines are like language: they are a "net" that tries to hold a reality, though often with that reality bulging through the holes. OTOH, I don't want to be in the position of saying that everything that anyone proposes as a doctrine should be accepted at face value because we then get into the "it's true for you but not for me" positions where we lose Christ Himself in the Tower of Babel we can build on that sort of error. And I certainly don�t want to get into the position where everyone can bring his own doctrine and interpretations to the table and all are considered equally good no matter how much they may contradict each other.


I think that this is where the idea that we must pray our theology comes in. We need to study, to pray, to study some more, and pray some more, trying to understand what it is the Church is trying to teach us. And, more importantly, we need to understand that the exuberance of the beginner is not necessarily where we need to be since it can leave us open to the hostility that is so often shown to others: newly learned truths are often taken as the only way that things can be understood. As in the spiritual life, we need to grow and mature. It is easy to want to throw in the towel because doctrinal discussions quickly become uncharitable: few want to listen�-really listen (whole lot of communication coursework here)--to the other person try to explain where he is coming from.

I'm also uncomfortable with the notion that everything is as black and white as some would have it. While the Catholic Church has clearly stated that no one who is currently living in a Church or ecclesial community not in communion with her. we still have people using the language of the age prior to Vatican Council II. They just don't seem to "get it" that the only people who can be heretics or schismatics today are Catholics who themsleves leave the Catholic Church.

In Christ,

BOB

Mykhayl:

Christ is Risen!! Indeed He is Risen!!!

No need to apologize. No offense taken. There are many levels of how we disagree in the Church itself before we even get tot he level of disagreements between other Churches and ecclesial communities.

In Christ,

BOB

Christ is Risen!! Indeed He is Risen!!!


JOHN:

I think our brother, Todd, is right on target. I think his insight is akin to what I posted above about our need to pray our theology. It is said that theology that is not prayed is the theology of the Enemy. He can twist doctrine and quote Scripture to his purpose but he hates with a hatred as far and deep as anything we can imagine.

Perhaps our study of doctrine should always be preceded by a prayer and a question: "How does this increase my love of God and love of neighbor?"

In Christ,

BOB

That is my view in a nutshell.

I'm not advocating getting rid of doctrine. Also, I don't deny that doctrine is important to shaping our understanding of the Gospel. I also know that many people come to God through intellection.

Nevertheless, I think doctrine is overemphasized. I also think it is sometimes equated with the Life in Christ, which I think is generally a mistake.

Instead, I see the evidence that there are plenty of people --Catholics, Orthodox, Protestants-- who live a good life and the Life in Christ without knowing much about doctrine, or without thinking through its ramifications, or who hold opposite views on certain issues. I also see people hating each other and fighting each other over disagreements on doctrine.

And from that evidence, I conclude that it is living the Life in Christ that is most important and that needs to be emphasized.

-- John

Dear Podkapartski,

I think that you are perhaps forgetting that I am a Moderator?

If this forum is respectful it is because of the vigilant monitoring and necessary actions of its Moderators and, most especially, its Administrators.

I would also add that I was interjecting a little humour by my remark--humour seems to be in short supply around here these days!

Have a nice and blessed day--
Alice, Moderator

JOHN:

While I agree with your statement, the problem comes in the details. I live and work among people from an Anabaptist background who maintain that "anything goes" once they have "accetped Christ as their personal Savior." For them, it doesn't seem to matter what they do since Christ already paid the price for it and there is no need for repentance since everything they have done, are doing, or will do is already forgiven. Some call that "cheap grace," others presumption. Question is: Is this "the life of Christ" that we ought to live. Because without some doctrinal and spiritual guidelines from those who have gone before, that's the lowest common denominator that we settle to. It seems to me that it already permeates our culture in the West. I see it all the time in my work. People who deny any contact with Christianity or its teachings all their lives--and their families as well--cling to the notion that all it takes is being a "good person"--whatever that means--and everyone is "entitled" to go to Heaven, there to have one big party and meet all the people from their families and from history that they've heard about.

I agree that doctrine can become a problem, but I also maintain that it is for those with immature faith--the old principle that "a little knowledge is a dangerous thing"; another is "fools rush in where angels fear to tread."

May you have a blessed day,

BOB